Title	BROADCAST WITHOUT BORDERS
Brand	REFUGEE PHONES
Product/Service	NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION
Category	A08. Charities, Public Health & Safety, Public Awareness Messages
Entrant	ÅKESTAM HOLST Stockholm, SWEDEN
Idea Creation	ÅKESTAM HOLST Stockholm, SWEDEN
Media Placement	ÅKESTAM HOLST Stockholm, SWEDEN
PR	ÅKESTAM HOLST Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production	ÅKESTAM HOLST Stockholm, SWEDEN
Additional Company	FLICKORNA LARSSON Stockholm, SWEDEN

Name	Company	Position
Magnus Jakobsson	Åkestam Holst	Creative Director
Eva Wallmark	Åkestam Holst	Art Director
Desiré Engström	Åkestam Holst	Copywriter
Mouddar Kouli	Åkestam Holst	Producer
Eric Karlsson	Åkestam Holst	Motion Director
Digge Zetterberg Odh	Åkestam Holst	PR
Nicholas Baines	Deliberate	PR
Benedict Bunyard	Deliberate	PR
Gustav Martner	Refugee Phones	Advertiser's Supervisor

The Campaign

In Syria the phone connections can be really bad. Also, many Syrians don´t even have a phone. In the worst case, this means that your relatives back home might not even know if you´re alive or not. March 21st is Mothers Day in Syria. On this day we made it possible for Syrian refugees to get in touch with their moms in their home country. We invited them to call our ”Mothers Day Hotline” to leave personal messages for their mothers. Then we re-packaged these messages as ”radio-ads”, bought media space on Syrian radio and broadcasted these messages all over Syria. Reaching the unreachables.

Creative Execution

March 21st is Mothers Day in Syria. On this day we made it possible for Syrian refugees to get in touch with their moms in their home country. We invited them to call our ”Mothers Day Hotline” to leave personal messages for their mothers. Then we re-packaged these messages as ”radio-ads”, bought media space on Syrian radio and broadcasted these messages all over Syria. Reaching the unreachables.

Over 150 radio spots were broadcasted in Syria on Mothers day and during the week leading up to it. The campaign also got a lot of media attention with feature articles in Fast Company, Huffington Post, Newsweek and almost every major newspaper in Sweden wrote about it. And emotional interviews with Syrian refugees who sent personal messages to Syria were broadcasted on TV4, Swedens biggest commercial tv-network. Putting a spotlight on Refugee Phones and how they help people to reach out, no matter what. And above all, putting a spotlight on the possibility to take part of the project as a refugee from Syria. The campaign highlighted how humanity can reach across any border and put a boot in the side of xenophobia. From phone to air, and from heart to heart. It reminded everybody of our shared bonds of family and humanity in these troubled times.

We turned commercial radio in Syria into a personal media for refugees. We made the impossible possible by using media in a way that crossed the boundries of war.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

To turn personal messages of love into mass communication. We augmented the offering of Refugee Phones - providing donated cell phones to newly arrived refugees - by turning personal voice mail messages into broadcast radio sent all across Syria. By using radio we made it possible for refugees to reach out to their mothers and families left behind in Syria; families rendered unreachable by phone and not knowing if their children had made it safely to their destinations. And the day we did it was March 21st - Mother’s Day in Syria. Our aim was both to connect families driven apart by war and forced beyond the reach of digital technology, and to remind everybody in Sweden and Europe of our shared bonds of family and humanity in these troubled times.